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Saturday, 1 May 2021
New top story from Time: New Jersey Teacher Suspended After Profane George Floyd Comments to Class
JERSEY CITY, N.J. — A New Jersey high school teacher has been suspended with pay after profanity-laced comments to students in his class about George Floyd, the man killed by a Minneapolis police officer.
A recording aired by WNBC-TV shows Dickinson High School science teacher Howard Zlotkin talking about Floyd and Black Lives Matter during what was supposed to be a climate change discussion in a landscape and design Zoom class.
Zlotkin, who is white, is heard to say people are “whining and crying about Black Lives Matter,” and he then refers to Floyd with a profanity as a “criminal” who “got arrested and he got killed because he wouldn’t comply.” Another profanity is heard as he continues that Floyd is being treated as a “hero.”
The video and one taken the next day also included a profanity directed at a student and a vulgar gesture, WNBC reported. The student said Zlotkin grew irate when she and three other students challenged his position, and the four were told to write an essay on “why Black lives should matter” — an assignment not given to other students.
Superintendent Franklin Walker told NJ.com that the language used was “unacceptable.” He said the district is investigating the situation and that police have also been notified “because some of it could be at the same level as a hate crime.”
“The comments that were made were very biased and he shouldn’t be having that kind of discussion with the children — that had nothing to do with the subject matter in the classroom,” Walker said. “The position that he put the children in certainly was a very uncomfortable one by doing and saying those kinds of things.”
The teachers’ union declined comment until it has more information, union president Ron Greco said.
Jersey City Public Schools said in a statement late Thursday that the school had been taking statements from students “before proceeding with disciplinary actions” until video from the second day’s class surfaced.
“The teacher will not have access to students or the school as we proceed,” spokesperson Norma Fernandez said in the statement quoted on WNBC. “We are appalled by the statements, profanity, disrespect and treatment of students.”
Zlotkin, who has been at Dickinson High School for 20 years, has also been suspended with pay from his adjunct professor position at Hudson County Community College, NJ.com reported. Spokeswoman Jennifer Christopher said “offensive and derogatory language” violates the college’s anti-harassment policy and professional conduct policy.
A message seeking comment was sent Saturday to Zlotkin, who declined comment to the New York Times, citing the investigation, but calling the footage a “very well-edited sound bite” and said he would “love one day to give my side of the story.”
New top story from Time: U.S. to Restrict Travel From India Due to COVID-19 Surge
WASHINGTON — The U.S. will restrict travel from India starting Tuesday, the White House said Friday, citing a devastating rise in COVID-19 cases in the country and the emergence of potentially dangerous variants of the coronavirus.
White House press secretary Jen Psaki said President Joe Biden’s administration made the determination on the advice of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Biden signed a proclamation barring entry to most foreigners who have been in India in the past 14 days, with exceptions for legal permanent residents, spouses and close family members of U.S. citizens, and some others. He cited the spread of the virus and its variants.
“The CDC advises, based on work by public health and scientific experts, that these variants have characteristics of concern, which may make them more easily transmitted and have the potential for reduced protection afforded by some vaccines,” Biden said in the proclamation.
He said the CDC has concluded that “proactive measures” are needed to protect public health from travelers from India.
With 386,452 new cases, India now has reported more than 18.7 million since the pandemic began, second only to the United States. The Health Ministry on Friday also reported 3,498 deaths in the last 24 hours, bringing the total to 208,330. Experts believe both figures are an undercount.
Biden spoke Monday with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi about the growing health crisis and pledged to immediately send assistance. This week, the U.S. began delivering therapeutics, rapid virus tests and oxygen to India, along with some materials needed for India to boost its domestic production of COVID-19 vaccines. Additionally, a CDC team of public health experts was expected to be on the ground soon to help Indian health officials move to slow the spread of the virus.
Vice President Kamila Harris, who is of Indian descent, called the situation in India a “great tragedy” and said she hadn’t spoken to any of her relatives still living there since the news of the travel ban was made public. She emphasized America’s “longstanding, decades-long relationship” with the country in speaking about the U.S. aid to help alleviate some of the crisis there.
“We have a responsibility as the United States, and particularly with people we have partnered with over the years, to step up when people are in a time of need,” she said.
The White House waited on the CDC recommendation before moving to restrict travel, noting that the U.S. already requires negative tests and quarantines for all international travelers. Other restrictions are in place on travel from China, Iran, the European Union, the United Kingdom, Ireland, Brazil and South Africa, which are or have been hotspots for the coronavirus.
There was no immediate comment on the new limits from the State Department, which on Thursday reissued a warning to Americans against traveling to India and said those already in the country should consider leaving by commercial means. That warning was accompanied by a notice that the department was telling the families of all U.S. government employees at its embassy in New Delhi and four consulates in India that they could leave the country at government expense.
U.S. diplomatic facilities in India have not been immune from the pandemic and a handful of local staff have perished from the virus. Several dozen other local and U.S. staffers have been sickened by COVID-19, according to officials who were not authorized to discuss personal matters publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity. The State Department has declined to comment on the number of staff affected, citing security and privacy concerns.
But even as the U.S. boosts pandemic assistance to India and allows some of its diplomatic families to come home, other aspects of the relationship continue unhampered.
Just minutes after the White House released the new travel restrictions, the State Department said it had approved more than $2.4 billion in arms sales to India, which the U.S. believes will be a critical counterbalance to China in the Indo-Pacific region.
The sale includes six Boeing P-8I patrol aircraft and related technology to be used for surveillance. The department said the deal “will support the foreign policy and national security of the United States by helping to strengthen the U.S.-Indian strategic relationship and to improve the security of a major defensive partner, which continues to be an important force for political stability, peace, and economic progress in the Indo-Pacific and South Asia region.”
— Superville reported from Philadelphia.
New top story from Time: DA Asks Feds to Probe Unlawful Strip Searches in NYC Suburb
MOUNT VERNON, N.Y. — The Westchester County district attorney has asked federal authorities to investigate “pervasive and persistent” civil rights violations involving the Mount Vernon Police Department, including illegal strip searches and excessive use of force.
District Attorney Mimi Rocah asked the U.S. Justice Department to investigate whether the suburban New York City department is “systematically violating peoples’ civil rights,” citing “potentially unlawful conduct by several former and current” officers.
Rocah, who took office in January, raised concerns earlier this year with Mount Vernon’s commissioner of public safety about a pattern of unjustified strip searches and body cavity searches.
The police department faces several lawsuits over strip searches, and four members of the department have been arrested on criminal charges over the past two years, the Westchester Journal News reported.
“All Westchester residents need to have confidence that they will be treated fairly and equitably,” Rocah said in a statement.
Mount Vernon Mayor Shawyn Patterson-Howard welcomed the request for a federal investigation.
“We are working hard to dismantle systemic issues and reform policing to ensure that our community is a safe place for all,” she said in a statement.
New top story from Time: If Biden Wants to Help America’s Kids, He Should Call for Free Day Camps
In the last week, as a board member for the Los Angeles Unified School District, I’ve seen students return to school campuses after more than a year of distance learning. As a leader for a nonprofit camp program, I also watched kids participate in an outdoor camp program after more than a year of limited social interaction. Both are critical to the recovery for America’s children — a recovery that could get a big boost thanks to President Biden’s American Families Plan, which promises $1.8 trillion for education and childcare.
However, while we should celebrate the President’s historic investment in our nation’s children and working parents, his plan is missing a big opportunity. To prevent millions of kids from slipping back into isolation during the coming summer months, when schools close once again and many parents return to work, President Biden should call for federally funded free summer day camp for all school-aged children.
This national program could strengthen children’s resilience and recovery during these crucial next months and help to fill the gaping holes in our social safety net that this pandemic has both revealed and exacerbated.
Mental health problems have taken a dramatic toll on America’s kids during the last year, leading to increased cases of depression, anxiety and suicidal thoughts. Now, even though many children are finally returning to their classrooms in California and across the country, their reprieve from socio-emotional distress will be short-lived. When the school year ends, most kids will return home and spend the summer inactive and separated from their peers.
At the same time that so many children will have nowhere to go, millions of parents are going to work. More than 80% of families are already worrying about basic childcare needs.
Read more: I’m Vaccinated Against COVID-19, But My Kids Aren’t. What’s Safe for Us?
Summer also highlights inequities that affect our children. While more affluent children go off to summer camp, travel or participate in an array of activities, kids in low-income neighborhoods are five times less likely to attend summer camp than their wealthier peers.
A national summer camp program would tackle these challenges head-on. It would give kids a place to go and allow them to make up for the time spent suffering in isolation by playing, learning and developing social skills and knowledge that will help them recover academically. It would enable their parents to return to work, without incurring the crippling costs of childcare.
And by hiring young adults and college students on summer break to serve as counselors, the program would provide an economic boost to young adults and give them a meaningful way to connect to their communities.
Implementing a national free summer camp is more affordable than it might sound. We already have the land: public school campuses, which could be kept open during the summer with federal support—and national parks and other landmarks, which could offer free entrance for camp programs to visit. And for the thousands of camps that already exist, the federal government could help expand slots for low-income families.
Right now, school districts across the country are deciding how to use COVID-19 relief funding to best serve our students’ academic, social-emotional and overall well-being. Districts like ours will spend tens of millions on summer school to mitigate a year of learning loss. But summer camp would provide plenty of opportunities for academic enrichment while also addressing something more fundamental: socio-emotional healing and growth.
Read more: These Mothers Wanted to Care for Their Kids and Keep Their Jobs. Now They’re Suing After Being Fired
Studies have shown us that kids struggle to learn when they’re traumatized. Having worked with children both as a teacher and as a camp director, I’ve seen resilience taught just as effectively on ropes courses, athletic fields, lakes and in the mountains as in a classroom.
We need more than summer school. We need kids to be able to play, to be outdoors instead of behind screens. We need to help kids build new relationships, not just with each other, but with mentors and role models in the form of counselors. And we need kids to connect with, and come to love, the planet that we’re asking them to help save.
In his first 100 days, President Biden has reminded us that, at its best, government can bring people together to do incredible things. In the U.S., that includes free schooling for every child and the best public universities in the world. In his next 100 days, President Biden should add free summer camp to that list. It will help every community, small towns and big cities alike, rediscover the meaning of connecting offline, the joy of play, the healing of community and the essential role that government can play in making our lives better.
New top story from Time: What Biden’s First 100 Days Tells Us About the Next 100 and Beyond
Joe Biden has been president of the United States for 100 days—here’s what Biden’s first 100 days tell us about the next 100 and beyond.
There is no reset with China coming. To China’s dismay, Biden’s arrival didn’t change the trajectory of U.S.-China relations in any meaningful way. Nor will it—there is zero popularity for Biden to win domestically by taking a more conciliatory approach to Beijing. But it’s not just U.S. politics that is preventing a reset with China; Biden has deep-seated ideological issues when it comes to dealings with China. Biden and key members of his team (like Secretary of State Tony Blinken) believe in a rules-based world order, one built atop respect for multilateralism, democracy, and human rights. A practical and consensus-driven Biden may have been willing to give more leadership space to the Chinese if they were willing to play by the same rules… but they aren’t (see: WHO, Hong Kong, Xinjiang). That means more competition with Beijing, and on multiple fronts: tech, trade, and vaccine diplomacy chief among them. Even the one area that should foster cooperation—climate change—is becoming increasingly competitive. While the Biden administration is still working on its comprehensive review of China policy, we’ve seen enough over the first 100 days to know rockier times lie ahead.
There’s less reset with the rest of the world than you might expect. In his first 100 days, Biden has reentered the Paris Climate Agreement and revived nuclear talks with the Iranians; he’s also talked tough and taken punitive measures against Russia and Saudi Arabia for actions the previous U.S. administration let slide. But despite these moves, the world has not suddenly rushed back into America’s embrace. Some of that has to do with the last four years and the realization that U.S. commitment to allies cannot be counted on beyond the next presidential election; but much more has to do with shifting geopolitical priorities in Washington and elsewhere. The first 100 days of the Biden administration have already shown that the U.S. is keen to move away from the Middle East—as seen with the Armenian genocide recognition (distancing it further from Turkey), frostier relations with Saudi Arabia, and the announced drawdown of U.S. troops in Afghanistan—so that it can shift its attention to Asia. Meanwhile, the U.S. and Europe are still very divided, both because of disagreements over values (like data privacy, for example) as well as over foreign policy (the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan being the latest; more fundamental disagreements center on how combative an approach to take towards China/Russia). The last four years have forced capitals to look out for themselves and pursue their own geopolitical objectives; 100 days of a Biden administration hasn’t suddenly ended that.
Good timing + competence = Covid success. Biden inherited Operation Warp Speed and the contracts that put the U.S. in vaccine pole position, but he and his team have also helped bring both stability and predictability to the domestic response, rocketing past its promise to deliver 100 million jabs in its first 100 days. The U.S. has done such a good job with its vaccination drive that it is now in position to start exporting millions of vaccine doses around the world to countries in desperate need of them, a much-needed booster shot to U.S. soft power after recent years. Of course, as the current situation in India has demonstrated, the world is hardly through the pandemic, and the prospect of more variants cropping up are serious cause for concern. Still, we’re the closest to normal we’ve been since the first quarter of 2020, and that was nowhere near guaranteed when Biden assumed office on January 20th.
Biden is serious about being a transformational president. We’ve seen Biden’s ambition when it comes to climate change, to an international tax plan and to reviving the U.S. economy. The latter stands out in particular as the Biden team looks ready to pump trillions into infrastructure (very broadly defined) in an attempt to modernize the outdated social contract of the 20th century for the realities of the current one. It remains to be seen how successful he will ultimately be—polarization in Washington remains as powerful a force as ever—but the fact that a large-scale attempt is being made is real progress. Beyond that, while Biden uses the rhetoric of American exceptionalism, in practice he understands more than many U.S. politicians that many of the structural problems facing the U.S. in 2021 require global buy-in and international cooperation, and that the ability of the U.S. to bully others into falling in line is limited. Under Biden, we’re beginning to see acceptance in Washington that the U.S. may no longer lead the world the way it once did, but it still remains its most significant player—that’s a type of power the Biden team is willing to lean its shoulder into, and signifies a transformation of its own kind as well.
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One final observation to make 100 days into the Biden presidency. So far, Biden has been much more successful tackling domestic problems than international ones… and that’s directly the result of Donald Trump. If Trump didn’t initiate Operation Warp Speed, the vaccine rollout in the U.S. would be much more similar to the European Union at the moment; and if Trump didn’t push a stolen election narrative that kept GOP voters in Georgia from the polls and handed the Senate over to Democrats, Biden wouldn’t have the legislators he needs to push through such massive stimulus programs. Presidents must play the hands they were dealt; so far, Biden has played his cards as well as one could hope. But with just 100 days under his belt, there are plenty more rounds left to go.
